intellectual property

After Apple decided to sue HTC last month in Delaware for patent infringement, it seems the handset maker is preparing to put on a little bit of high-profile litigation of its own.

This morning, HTC filed a claim in the U.S. District Court in Delaware alleging three counts of patent infringement against Apple, seeking all the typical damages bells and whistles that makes it sound like the world as we know it is at stake.

This morning, as part of the ongoing Samsung v Apple patent litigation, the German court responsible for imposing a ban on Galaxy Tab 10.1 sales in the EU has backpedaled, temporarily lifting the injunction enjoining Samsung from distributing its flagship tablet in the European Union.

Why? It appears the German court decided that it may lack the authority to enjoin Samsung's Korean parent corporation under the EU's regulations regarding international jurisdiction.

In a decision with potentially far-reaching consequences, a German court handed down a preliminary injunction halting all distribution of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 in the European Union today, after a motion was filed by Apple for just such an order.

The suit in question is over nine patents, most of which relate to broad smartphone functions and concepts. The patents are so broad that Apple sued Nokia over them (yes, the exact same nine patents) last year in the same German court, and that suit ended in a settlement widely presumed to be a victory for Apple.

Android's latest indirect legal tussle to come to a head, a patent suit between HTC and Apple, was ruled on last week by the US ITC (Court of International Trade) - finding the Taiwanese manufacture liable for two counts of patent infringement. This news has spread like wildfire through every corner of the tech blog world. But is there really anything that's changed right now (or even in the near future) because of the outcome of this suit?

You've all probably heard bits and pieces of news about a company called Lodsys in the last couple of weeks, (they've been "patent trolling" iOS app developers) even if you don't really keep up on all things fruit-related. If you're not familiar with the story, let me give you a quick rundown.

Lodsys is what we affectionately refer to as a "patent troll" - a company that buys up promising and often vague or [overly] broad patents in a hope of using them to threaten to sue the pants off people that they know might be infringing on them.

Last month, Google bid $2 million for the patents of the now-defunct micro-cell phone company Modu, fueling speculation as to just what Google's plans would be with that intellectual property. Today, it was announced that the bidding process for the last remnants of Modu's legacy had ended, and Google was the winner (albeit by a narrow margin of $10,000), with a final offer of $4.9 million.

If you've never heard of Modu before, don't worry - the company came out of Israel, and was generally unknown to most of us in the US-of-A until it started having financial troubles.

Recent iPhone Game of the Year (Pocket Gamers) winner Firemint, who won with their game Flight Control, issued a C&D Order to StickyCoding in regards to their game, Flying Aces.

Here is the quick version of what's going on, according to ThisAndroidLife: Firemint has issued a C&D Order to StickyCoding to immediately stop sales of their game, Flying Aces, because it's 'strikingly similar' to their game, Flight Control.

The Questions

StickyCoding claims they have not used any part of Firemint's coding, graphics, or overall assets from Flight Control.